


An Open Eye

by thatfangirl



Category: Birds of Prey (Comic)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-17
Updated: 2007-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-05 11:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatfangirl/pseuds/thatfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Barbara never guessed that seeing Dinah happy could cause her so much pain, but she keeps watching because this is who she is, the all-seeing, all-knowing, nothing-feeling Oracle.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Open Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after Birds of Prey #100. Vague reference to Justice League of America Vol. 2. Title from [You Fit Into Me](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem202.html) by Margaret Atwood.

Barbara keeps one of Luthor's satellites trained on Dinah at all times. If Dinah ever discovers the subcutaneous transmitter—which she won't, but if she does—she'll tell Dinah it's to keep her safe, to be able to dispatch one of her agents if the need arises, but Barbara knows that even Dinah will consider that a feeble excuse. Whatever her reasons, it's not as if the satellite can pick up sound (although she could probably read lips under favorable conditions), and Dinah spends most of her time indoors, where everything turns into a mishmash of infrared.

But one day Ollie decides to take Dinah to the country, and their picnic in an open field becomes increasingly intimate. Barbara never guessed that seeing Dinah happy could cause her so much pain, but bile is rising from her churning stomach and a strange, localized thunderstorm is trapped beneath her ribcage. She keeps watching, though, because this is who she is, the all-seeing, all-knowing, nothing-feeling Oracle. She keeps watching until it's just data, just ones and zeroes, on's and off's: Dinah and Ollie are on, while she and Dinah are off.

She reassigns the satellite after that, and pushes it so completely out of mind that she isn't alarmed when Dinah joins the re-formed JLA. Consequently, she's even less prepared to wake up one morning and find Dinah looming over her bed, which is a feat considering she wasn't prepared at all.

"What's this?" Dinah demands, flicking something off her fingernail.

It's the transmitter, of course. Dinah wouldn't find it, but the JLA would. Barbara grabs the bar above her bed and struggles to sit up. "What are you doing here?" she fires back, trying to figure out how Dinah circumvented her security measures. Dinah's good, but Barbara knows she's better.

"Have you been _watching_ me?" Dinah asks, her nose crinkling with distaste. Then she almost laughs. "Of course you have." She touches Barbara's hand, regarding her sadly. "I appreciate that you care, but you need to let me know when you have my back."

_I always have your back_, Barbara wants to say. "I wasn't _watching_ you," she mimics. Dinah rolls her eyes and she amends, "Not really. Not recently." She takes her glasses from the nightstand and feels slightly more composed with them on. "How's Sin?" And she doesn't want to fight, she just wants to enjoy Dinah's presence, the smell of her shampoo and other sweetly chemical scents undergirded by something that's simply Dinah, but she can't keep from adding, "Is working for the JLA more compatible with motherhood than working with me?"

She expects Dinah to get mad, but Dinah only hunches slightly. "Sin's good," she says. "Ollie is, too." At his name, Barbara's damnable eidetic memory replays their lovemaking and all she wants to do is leap out of bed and get as far away from Dinah as possible. Dinah must see her blanch, because she flinches herself. "I'm sor—"

Barbara gestures at the wheelchair that Dinah must have moved. "If you could—"

"I _am_ sorry."

"I know."

Dinah pushes the chair over and is waiting for Barbara when she rolls into the kitchen. The respite has restored Barbara enough for her to tease weakly, "You're going to have to tell me how you got in."

"No, I'm not," Dinah teases back, handing Barbara a mug of coffee. It's too hot to drink, but Barbara ducks her head into the steam and pretends that this is just another morning in Metropolis.

After the rich aroma has convinced the remainder of her neurons to fire, Barbara sets the mug on the counter. "I'm glad you're with the JLA. The loss to our community—to the world—if you hung up your fishnets for good..." Temptation overwhelms her and she takes a sip of coffee; it scalds all the way down. "We need you. We always will."

"Thank you," Dinah says quietly. "I hope you'll be watching over us for years to come. We need you, too."

They stare at each other across the kitchen island. Barbara's said all she's able to and Dinah's heard all she wants to, so she pats Barbara on the shoulder and sees herself out. Barbara wheels to a computer and brings up the security cameras, jumping from feed to feed in order to follow Dinah for as long as she can.

This is what she is, and she can't see anything else.


End file.
